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ALEXANDER WILSON (1766-1813)

Wilson, who shares with Audubon pioneer honors in the realm of American ornithology, was born in Scotland and did not arrive in America until he was twenty-eight. His youthful ambition had centered wholly upon poetry. An edition of his poems had appeared in 1789 three years after the first volume of his contemporary, neighbor Burns, and he had followed it with others, one of which had sold a hundred thousand copies in a few weeks. Sympathy with the spirit of the French revolution led him, as Burns was tempted to do at about the same period. to emigrate to America. Almost as soon as he landed he became intensely interested in the strange new bird life of the new world, and began at once to study it, supporting himself in the meantime by teaching school. Under difficulties almost insuperable he struggled on until in 1808 he was able to issue the first volume of what ultimately was to be the nine volumes of his American Ornithology. He lacked Audubon's energy and vision, and as a result worked

on a smaller scale for a smaller audience and has won a smaller place for himself. His writings, however, are more literary than Audubon's and far more poetical. He was a true poet. The poetical endings of his studies of American birds are original and poetic and intensely American.

THE BLUEBIRD

The pleasing manners, and sociable disposition of this little bird, entitle him to particular notice. As one of the first messengers of spring, bringing the charming tidings to our very doors, he bears his own recommendation always along with him, and meets with a hearty welcome from everybody.

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Though generally accounted a bird of passage, yet, so early as the middle of February, if the weather be open, he usually makes his appearance about his old haunts, the barn, orchard, and fence 15 posts. Storms and deep snows sometimes succeeding, he disappears for a time; but about the middle of March is again seen, accompanied by his mate, visiting the box in the garden, or the hole in the old apple 20 tree, the cradle of some generations of his ancestors. When he first begins his amours,' says a curious and correct observer, it is pleasing to behold his courtship, his solicitude to please and to secure 25 the favour of his beloved female. He uses the tenderest expressions, sits close by her, caresses and sings to her his most endearing warblings. When seated together, if he espies an insect delicious to her 30 taste, he takes it up, flies with it to her, spreads his wings over her, and puts it in her mouth.' If a rival makes his appearance (for they are ardent in their

loves), he quits her in a moment, attacks and pursues the intruder as he shifts from place to place, in tones that bespeak the jealousy of his affection, conducts him, with many reproofs, beyond the extremities of his territory, and returns to warble out his transports of triumph beside his beloved mate. The preliminaries being thus settled, and the spot fixed on, they begin to clean out the old nest, and the rubbish of the former year, and to prepare for the reception of their future offspring. Soon after this, another sociable little pilgrim (motacilla domestica, house wren), also arrives from the south, and, finding such a snug berth preoccupied, shows his spite, by watching a convenient opportunity, and, in the absence of the owner, popping in and pulling out sticks; but takes special care to make off as fast as possible.

The female lays five, and sometimes six eggs, of a pale blue colour; and raises two, and sometimes three brood in a season; the male taking the youngest under his particular care while the female is again setting. Their principal food are insects, particularly large beetles, and other hard-shelled sorts, that lurk among old, dead, and decaying trees. Spiders are also a favourite repast with them. In the fall, they occasionally regale themselves on the berries of the sour gum; and, as winter approaches, on those of the

red cedar, and on the fruit of a rough hairy vine that runs up and cleaves fast to the trunks of trees. Ripe persimmons is another of their favourite dishes, and many other fruits and seeds which I have found in their stomachs at that season, which, being no botanist, I am unable

particularize. They are frequently estered with a species of tape worm, some of which I have taken from their 10 intestines of an extraordinary size, and, in Most

some

return of mild and open weather, we hear his plaintive note amidst the fields, or in the air, seeming to deplore the devastations of winter. Indeed, he appears 5 scarcely ever totally to forsake us; but to follow fair weather through all its journeyings till the return of spring.

cases, in great numbers. other birds are also plagued with these vermin, but the bluebird seems more subject to them than any I know, except the 15 woodcock. An account of the different species of vermin, many of which, I doubt not, are nondescripts, that infest the plumage and intestines of our birds, would of itself form an interesting publication; but, as this belongs more properly to the entomologist, I shall only, in the course of this work, take notice of some of the most remarkable.

Such are the mild and pleasing manners of the bluebird, and so universally is he esteemed, that I have often regretted that no pastoral muse has yet arisen in this western woody world, to do justice to his name, and endear him to us still more by the tenderness of verse, as has been done to his representative in Britain, the robin redbreast. A small acknowledg

ment of this kind I have to offer, which the reader, I hope, will excuse as a tribute to rural innocence.

When winter's cold tempests and snows are

no more,

Green meadows and brown furrow'd fields re-appearing,

shore;

And cloud-cleaving geese to the lakes are a-steering;

When first the lone butterfly flits on the wing,

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When red glow the maples, so fresh and so pleasing,

O then comes the bluebird, the herald of spring!

And hails with his warblings the charms

of the season.

The usual spring and summer song of 5 The fishermen hauling their shad to the the blue bird is a soft, agreeable, and oftrepeated warble, uttered with open quivering wings, and is extremely pleasing. In his motions and general character, he has great resemblance to the robin redbreast 30 of Britain; and, had he the brown olive of that bird, instead of his own blue, could scarcely be distinguished from him. Like him, he is known to almost every child; and shows as much confidence in man by 35 associating with him in summer, as the other by his familiarity in winter. He is also of a mild and peaceful disposition, seldom fighting or quarrelling with other birds. His society is courted by the in- 40 habitants of the country, and few farmers neglect to provide for him, in some suitable place, a snug little summer-house, ready fitted and rent free. For this he more than sufficiently repays them by the 45 cheerfulness of his song, and the multitudes of injurious insects which he daily destroys. Towards fall, that is in the month of October, his song changes to a single plaintive note, as he passes over 50 The bluebird will chant from his box such

the yellow many-coloured woods; and its melancholy air recalls to our minds the approaching decay of the face of nature. Even after the trees are stript of their

Then loud piping frogs make the marshes to ring;

Then warm glows the sunshine, and fine is the weather;

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The blue woodland flowers just beginning to spring,

And spicewood and sassafras budding together:

O then to your gardens ye housewives repair,

Your walks border up, sow and plant at your leisure:

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an air, That all your hard toils will seem truly a pleasure!

leaves, he still lingers over his native 55 He flits through the orchard, he visits each

fields, as if loath to leave them. About the middle or end of November, few or none of them are seen; but, with every

tree,

The red flowering peach, and the apple's sweet blossoms: